Wandering lonely through the snow streets of New YorkI stumbled on a thrift store that sold postcards by the yardI bought a mile and shipped them home so I could readTen thousand ten-word tragedies, the lives these strangers leadTo remind myself the things I need

Inspired by Frank Turner and his songs—especially that evocative verse from Mittens—the editors were delighted to learn that he really did find that box of postcards in a New York thrift store. Frank was kind enough to send us the box, and from it we chose a series of postcards and forwarded them to the writers in this book. Gaining inspiration from the postcards and their 'ten word tragedies', the contributors wrote an amazingly eclectic selection of tales—moving, funny, horrific, bizarre, and delightful, these are the lives these strangers lead.

CONTENTS

I Am Here — Michael Marshall Smith

London Safe — Stuart Neville

The War Within — Kelley Armstrong

The New Boyfriend — Scott Smith

From the Living Room of Cottage 6 —Josh Malerman

Beat the Card Home — Stephen Volk

She Forgot The All, She Could Not Remember Anything But Longing — Kelly Braffet

Give Me Two — Michael Koryta

The Letter from Elsie — Matt Bechtel

I Hate to Leave This — Delilah S. Dawson

Howard Sturgis and the Letters and the Van and What He Found When He Went Back to His House — Paul Tremblay